


Bind

by wynnebat



Series: Knots in the Red String [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Attempted Murder, Gen, Guide Sherlock Holmes, Jim Moriarty is a baby sociopath, Kidlock, Red String of Fate, Sentinel John Watson, Spirit Animals, Spirit World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many things Sherlock doesn't like about being a Guide, but his Sentinel's alright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Keira Marcos' 2015 July Rough Trade Challenge.
> 
> Not especially canon compliant past what we learned of Sherlock and John's families in seasons 1-2. 
> 
> & this isn't discussed in-story, so I'll just mention it here. I know in most S/G stories there's a bonding concept, but just assume that in this one bonding is simply the event of the Sentinel and the Guide meeting rather than banging.

There was little that annoyed Sherlock as much as things he didn't know.

At ten years old, these things made a huge list. Frankly, Sherlock wasn't sure how anyone ever had the time to grow up when there were so many things to learn. There were over two hundred species of squirrel out there and not enough of them lived in England so that Sherlock could identify them. There were hundreds of books in the Holmes family library, and sure, some of them were boring (his mother, despite her perfectly interesting career as a wildlife researcher, enjoyed nonfiction about the history of fashion—yuck!), and too many had words he needed to memorize specific dictionaries to understand, but there were so many interesting things. And he didn't yet understand how cellular towers worked, or what exactly happened under the hood of a car (the last time he'd tried, he'd gotten one of his good shirts sooty and oily, his mother made him wash it himself!), or where exactly everything was in the solar system.

And the absolute worst of it all was that Mycroft, who'd only gotten a seven years' head start into the world, seemed to know everything. Sherlock hated that (and him) with a passion so intense that he'd had to make sure steam didn't really come out of his ears. That hatred peaked each time Mycroft patted his head and said, "I'm sure you'll catch up someday," in a tone that just encouraged Sherlock to hunt down a dozen frogs and leave them in Mycroft's room. Twice.

He was always caught, of course, and not just because Mummy had a sixth sense about when her children were up to trouble (or fun, Sherlock thought grumpily).

Mycroft was a Sentinel.

This mostly meant that Mycroft was a huge jerk.

Mycroft had better vision (which he used on boring schoolwork instead of helping Sherlock find groundhogs for DNA samples), he could hear Sherlock sneaking around from across the house, he could smell frogs and dirt and things that Sherlock tried very hard to make scentless under his covers before he got inside, and he could taste the occasional things Sherlock dropped into his drinks.

It was all very unfair, since Sherlock's own senses were awful in comparison. Sherlock was a Guide, and mostly, this meant he had to deal with emotions.

People said a lot of things about emotions. They were supposed to be volatile and passionate and consuming enough for all of humanity to be utterly obsessed with them. Sherlock found them dull. When you could train yourself to see what someone was feeling from the shape of their brow or the curl of their lip, why would you ever need confirmation from a sixth sense? People already wore their feelings on their faces, past and present and maybe a bit future, too. Sherlock didn't need their mental gunk in his head to know how they felt.

His tutor called it a precious gift, but Sherlock was pretty sure he'd rather be a Sentinel instead. As far as he knew, Mycroft got to learn about how to be like James Bond. Sherlock got stuck with learning to make sure people's emotions didn't bleed into his own and make him dizzy.

"Can't I just make it go away?" he'd asked, once. (Actually, it had been many times.)

Having used up a variety of other answers on other days, Sherlock's tutor merely said, "But don't you like it even a little bit? It's like... a window into people's heads. Like spying."

"People are boring. And overemotional."

"You're a Guide," his tutor despaired.

"It's not like I can do anything with it. It doesn't even work on animals! Mycroft's the only exception to that, but even throwing emotions at him gets boring. It's like cheating. I don't need to throw annoyance at him when I can just add glue to his hair gel."

"You must at least be looking forward to finding your Sentinel—your fated partner."

Sherlock scowled. If people were overemotional generally, then they were super overemotional about bonding. It was like some kind of mass insanity. Even Mummy, who'd taught him and Mycroft everything they knew about rational thought and making good decisions, got sentimental about bonds.

"We all only have half a heart," she'd once said, wistfully. "And until you meet your other half, you never really feel alive."

It all sounded very dumb to Sherlock.

And yet, well. It was hard to grow up in a world such as this one and not look forward to meeting his bondmate at least a little. Even Sherlock had some hopes. He wanted a bondmate who was just as smart as he was, just as interested in the world, just as annoyed by Mycroft as he was. If he was going to be stuck with a bondmate, he wanted the very best.

Except, he already knew his bondmate wasn't the best, because his bondmate was late. According to the terrible daytime soaps that Mycroft pretended not to watch, Sentinels were supposed to find their Guides with their enhanced senses (that Sherlock wasn't jealous of at all) in order to start this bond thing, and so far, Sherlock's Sentinel was absent. It was practically insulting.

So what if the average age for first meetings was still a decade away? If Sherlock's Sentinel was as exceptional as Sherlock himself, he should be here already. He should have been there when Sherlock was bullied the first time, or when Sherlock lost Edgar the cat, or when Sherlock tried not to be lonely in a big old house that only housed three.

"I'm sure he—or she—isn't trying to be obscure on purpose," Mycroft tried to assure him at dinner that day.

It also wasn't fair that Mycroft had had more time to learn microexpressions. Sherlock hadn't even said anything about his stupid bondmate aloud and Mycroft still somehow knew. He wasn't going to ask how, of course, so he just settled for glaring at his older brother.

"You've been picking at your wrist all evening. It was hardly a puzzle," Mycroft explained, like Sherlock was a baby or something.

Sherlock tried scowling at him harder, but that only made that stupid thread of utter fondness run through everything else Mycroft was feeling. Knowing people actually liked you made it so hard to just hate them, Sherlock thought.

"It's a he," Sherlock grumbled. "Because girls are giggly. And they wear skirts and dresses sometimes, which you can't go adventuring in."

"And we must always be ready for adventure," Mycroft agreed.

"Especially if it involves pirates," Sherlock told him, just in case Mycroft had forgotten. Huffing a bit, he shoved his plate away from himself so that there was room on the table for his wrist. Then, all he had to do was pull up his sleeve and adjust his vision (kind of like focusing binoculars, but much less cool) to see a red ribbon wrapped around his wrist. It wasn't the kind of real that the rest of the world was—he couldn't just slip it off like the ribbons Mummy used to tie her hair. He'd tried, of course, spending a whole afternoon trying to slip a knife under it to separate it from his wrist and using scissors on the end that extended away from himself for a foot before vanishing into nothingness.

The only thing that even mildly worked was pulling on the string. Sherlock had taken to winding it around his finger, pulling the end that wasn't connected to him as much as he could. Most of the time, he got bored quickly, but often he toyed with it unconsciously, his whole finger ending up cocooned in the red string. It never ended, always yielding but never letting him pull his Sentinel any closer.

This time, Sherlock decided to see if he could wrap it around his whole arm, and had barely begun when the doorbell rang.

"I think that might be my shipment of books—" Mycroft began thoughtfully, but Sherlock was already racing to the door.

Because for the first time ever, his link to his bondmate had twinged. It was a real psychic twinge, the first Sherlock had ever received, and something that could only be caused by proximity. For the first time in forever, Sherlock was excited by his Guide powers. He yanked on the front door, pulling it open.

Outside stood a boy his age, and behind him a woman that had to be his mum, but she wasn't important. Because—

"Hi. I'm John Watson, your Sentinel," the boy said. "And you're a jerk."

John's curls of anger filtered through Sherlock's mind, capturing his Guide side just as John's appearance took hold of the rest of Sherlock's senses. He wasn't as great of a detective as one of his ancestors had been, but he was learning. Even if all he could concentrate on outside of his Sentinel's emotions were his blond hair, blue eyes, more freckles than anyone could know what to do with.

"Sherlock Holmes. And I am not," Sherlock replied instinctively. "Except to Mycroft, sometimes, but he deserves it. I haven't done anything to you." And obviously, his bondmate was stupid, and what was even stupider was how much that hurt. Still, Sherlock added, "I wouldn't do anything to you."

He was vaguely aware of his mother coming by and greeting his Sentinel's mother, and Mycroft sticking his nose in too, and people's emotions being all over the place more than usual, but most of his attention was on John, who was scowling at the universe.

"I don't think you're doing it on purpose," John conceded. Then, he matched Sherlock in rolling up his sleeves, and Sherlock saw the mirror version of his own bond string tied around the boy's right wrist. But unlike Sherlock's pale, unblemished skin, John's wrist was red and raw, like a rope burn. "But you keep tugging, and you've got to stop it because it's hurting me."

Nearby, Sherlock's mum tried to reassure John's mum, saying, "We had no idea it would be that sensitive. Sherrinford and I never felt anything like that. Our children must have an extraordinarily strong bond."

It didn't help much, because she wasn't talking to John, who was the person who actually needed talking to.

Being wrong was number two on Sherlock's list of things he hated most. Not number one, because most of the time it didn't matter if he was wrong. But this time, it did. Sherlock had bond experiments he wanted to do, and he wouldn't be able to do them if his Sentinel hated him forever and ever. And he wanted a fun life, filled with science and pirates, and people seemed to think that you couldn't do that without being bonded. (And, maybe, possibly, it was kind of mean of him to cause those ropes of pain that weaved through John's anger.)

"I apologize," Sherlock told him, glaring at a spot somewhere in the middle of John's forehead.

The threads of John's pain didn't go away—and as soon as he was allowed, Sherlock was going to grab John's wrist and see why, because psychic connections weren't supposed to do physical damage, everyone knew that!—but the anger began to lessen as John said, "Did that hurt? It looked like it hurt."

Sherlock scowled. "No." He crossed his arms, which wasn't at all a protective gesture, and maybe glared a bit. "Why did it take so long for you to find me, anyway?"

"It's not like we had a map or anything," John said. "We had to drive around everywhere to go towards the thread—" rubbing his wrist, he added, "—and the pain. And sometimes my mum was busy or at work and couldn't drive me to look for you, or you stopped tugging all of a sudden and we were in the middle of nowhere without any clue where to go. Oh, and your neighborhood's a billion meters long."

"Only a few hundred meters," Sherlock replied. "Maybe a bit more, if you include the Johnsons' house, but they're annoying so I usually don't."

John nodded, and Sherlock wondered if John's street had Johnsons too, with stupid boys who laughed at him and stupid girls who thought his hobbies were boring. Suddenly, he realized that maybe, there existed the possibility of being friends with his Sentinel.

"We have horses, too, in the back," Sherlock said, because he wasn't above bribery.

"Really?"

"They make funny sounds. And scare easily. And like vegetables."

"Weird."

"And we have cats."

"Gray ones?"

Sherlock nodded seriously, because cats were a very important topic. One could only get them to sit still for so long, and Sherlock was determined to get them to comply with his experiments one day.

"Mummy, may John and I go play outside?" Sherlock called back into the house.

"Only if you don't pester the animals too much!"

That was good enough, and Sherlock stepped outside, leading his Sentinel out into the yard. It was getting dark already, the sunset already a fading light and the full moon high in the sky. But darkness had never bothered Sherlock, not in the way people and their emotions always had. On the way, he asked to see John's hand, and with a, "Just be careful," John let him poke at it.

John's hand wasn't much different from his own. A few tones different, a few more bits of dirt under his fingernails, a few freckles here and there—and the sharp red lines around his wrist. Sherlock couldn't do much with his powers still so underdeveloped, even if John was his bondmate, but he still prodded at their bondstrings with his mind. John's emotions ran deep and vivid the closer Sherlock's mind got, but he ignored them all in favor of the threads of pain wrapped around the wound. Slowly, he shoved good feelings toward them, trying to remember all his tutor had tried to tell him about healing psychic wounds.

Mainly, the good feelings were about the newest book he was reading, but also about how he liked John, maybe, and that it wasn't okay that John's wrist was damaged. It wasn't allowed to be damaged, Sherlock thought, scowling. And he wouldn't, now that Sherlock was there to make sure he wasn't getting psychically beat up all the time.

"Thanks," John said, when his wrist was completely free of wounds, and his psychic energy didn't hold a single thread of pain. And then he grinned, and added, "It was the least you could do."

"And I can undo it just as easily!" Sherlock called after him.

But then, there were horses to see and John to dazzle with his burgeoning investigative talent and a friendship to weasel into their lives, and he quite forgot about the matter.

That day, Sherlock decided he didn't have the perfect Sentinel. John wasn't nearly as smart as Sherlock was, nor did he share Sherlock's innate—and perfectly healthy, thank you very much—resentment of Mycroft, nor was he the best Sentinel on the planet. He also decided it didn't matter, because John was interesting. John didn't seem to care that Sherlock was smarter than him (and that was good, because Sherlock wasn't going to play dumb, not for his stupid teachers at school or his tutor and especially not for his Sentinel) or that Sherlock was a little odd. John was... strange, and kind (not overly nice, but Sherlock thought being nice was overrated), and told him about his appendicitis surgery in great and fascinated detail. And that was even better than perfect.


	2. Chapter 2

The worst part about John, Sherlock decided a couple months later, was that John lived unfairly far away, just over two hours north. Sherlock was unfortunately used to the world not being able to pander to his desires at all times; while even the extended Holmes family thought he was spoiled, Sherlock bemoaned his mother's easy denial of buying him mildly dangerous chemicals, his own laboratory, or psychic blockers for Guides so that he wouldn't have to put up with other people's emotions.

(For the first, she'd said, "I'd like to keep you alive, Sherlock," and only laughed at his diatribe against parental instincts. For the second, she'd said, "You'd get yourself in too much trouble." For the third, she'd only said, "Maybe one day, but... You should try, at least for now, alright?")

But John's physical distance was much more unbearable than his other interests. How was Sherlock supposed to show John his experiments? How was he supposed to just show John anything? They had phones, of course, but that wasn't nearly the same. And the solution Mycroft proposed—to just make another friend for the time being—was absurd.

It was unbearable. It was insulting.

"No, I'm not going to ask them to move in with us, love," Mummy told Sherlock, patting his head as she read a journal. "You know Mrs. Watson has a job in her own town."

To John, Mrs. Watson said, "No, we can't move to Sherlock's town—think of the rent!"

"But it's important for my psychological growth to have my Sentinel nearby," Sherlock argued. "And the books say I need a male presence in my life!"

And John went with, "What if I develop behavioral issues from being away from my Guide? Like—sociopathy! You'll really regret it then."

But neither his family nor John's would yield to their pleas.

"It's not fair," grumbled Sherlock, lying on a bale of hay that Mummy had set aside specifically for him to mope on. The barn was filled with the soft sounds of horses in their stables, and at this time of night, there wasn't a single human being other than them in the barn. He could feel John's emotions, easy and stable, surrounding him, keeping even the distant ones coming from Mummy and Mycroft at bay.

John was lying on its twin, right next to Sherlock's. He was on his stomach, a mystery book he'd nicked from Sherlock's bookshelf opened in front of him. They'd been reading it idly, after a day of doing all they could think of and wearing themselves out.

"Obviously, this means we need to make our own path," Sherlock said, sitting up.

"I don't think the horses will agree to take us," John said. "We could try though."

"We already tried that." It hadn't worked quite like Sherlock had hoped it would. "I'm talking about using the spirit world."

John put his chin in his hands. "That sounds like a terrible idea. I'm in."

Sherlock felt a little smug at that, because really, his Sentinel was the best.

They spent the rest of John's weekend visit trying to meditate themselves into the spirit world with no luck. John's classes at school hadn't gotten to that part of being a Sentinel or Guide yet and Sherlock had a habit of not paying to the Sentinel/Guide parts of his education at all. During the day, he attended a nearby public school, but on weekends the tutor came by for specialized education. Mycroft appreciated it, because he was a suck-up, but Sherlock didn't think the tutors were any more interesting than the schoolteachers. Most of the time, all his tutors or teachers wanted was for him to start using his gifts properly, but that was something Sherlock wasn't planning on doing. (Except, of course, when it came to John. John's emotions could invade his head all they wanted to. And maybe Mummy's. But that was it.)

Now that they'd met, Sherlock could feel John's emotions even with the utterly awful distance between their towns, and it was better than nothing at all.

But still unacceptable, of course.

Sherlock reached out to his tutor the very next day and said, "Tell me how to enter the spirit world." He grimaced, but also said that magic word that all adults seemed to like. "Please."

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that? For a moment I thought I heard you express enthusiasm for my lessons," Mrs. Walsh replied, though by her emotions Sherlock could tell she wasn't shocked at all.

Sherlock scowled at her until, laughing, she began to go over the theory again.

"My students often take a steep upturn in their interest in Sentinel/Guide lessons once they finally meet their bondmate. And to have a meeting so young! Your bond must be especially developed despite your age. Matthew and I only met when we were in our early twenties, and let me tell you, he was probably much more bearable at ten years old than during our undergraduate years. But he straightened out in the end, after I rejected his first three proposals."

"The spirit world," Sherlock reminded her, trying not to gag on the love in the air.

Mrs. Walsh continued on as if she hadn't heard him, which would've been impossible even if she wasn't a Sentinel. "The fourth one, though… Now that was what I'd call earning a woman's heart. But I suppose you're a little too young to care—"

"I won't care when I'm older either."

"—so let me continue on. As you know, the spirit world is a plane of existence all Sentinels and Guides can mentally reach with a little practice. All the natural laws of our world may not apply there, but the regulatory laws still do, as do many of the dangers." At this, Mrs. Walsh became serious. "I recommended against this, but as your mother and I have discussed, you'd find your way into it sooner or later on your own. There are safe, monitored areas of the spirit world that you will feel instinctually drawn to. These spirit hubs represent centuries of spiritual history; their paths have been well-worn by our ancestors. All you have to do is not stray off those paths. And believe me, it takes a decent amount of effort to stray. You'll find everything you need in the hubs: areas for you and John to chat, activities set up for precocious under-eighteens like you, as well as things for us old people, and policemen on duty to make sure everyone is safe. We can't deny you access to your gifts, but the spirit world isn't safe—remember that, Sherlock."

"Alright," Sherlock muttered.

"No matter how much order we've worn into it, the spirit world's nature is chaotic and strange. People can get lost in it and disappear for months or years or forever, leaving their bodies behind. And if you die inside the spirit world, you pass onto the next life or become a thing of nightmares. Only the very lucky ones find their way out if they've strayed too far off path."

Despite himself, Sherlock felt a bit of uncertainty. He pushed it away. The real world was dangerous, too. People died and children went missing and no one told you to never leave the house. You just had to be careful. Very careful.

With that thought, Sherlock reluctantly sought out Mycroft, and said, "Teach me how to be a Sentinel so that I can teach John." Because John didn't have more than the common education all Sentinels and Guides got at school, not the private help Sherlock and Mycroft had gotten all their lives.

Mycroft's emotions had a tinge of pride to them. "You know, I could always teach him myself."

"No! I don't want you to corrupt him! You already have Greg." Mycroft's Guide was irritating, as befitted anyone connected to Sherlock's older brother, but under duress Sherlock might admit Greg wasn't bad. He and Mycroft attended the same school. Greg came over a lot and when Mycroft was busy, he'd play detective games with Sherlock. And he wasn't an awful know-it-all who always ruined Sherlock's fun like Mycroft.

"Alright, alright," Mycroft said, then patted his bed beside him. "Come here and let me teach you."

And Sherlock could tell by the emotions in the air how happy it made Mycroft that he was going to his older brother for help. Mycroft was such a jerk. He couldn't even let Sherlock hate him easily. Still, Sherlock stayed longer than he intended to, and gave in just a little to letting Mycroft lecture him on things other than Sentinel/Guide business. Then he called John and talked to him for only three and a half hours about what he'd learned that day. Mummy made him get off the phone for dinner and then John had football practice with his other friends— _who aren't my Guide,_ John had said when Sherlock pouted.

After dinner, Sherlock sat down comfortably onto his bed and forced himself to meditate. He ignored the foreign emotions butting into his head—even John's for once. John obviously hadn't made it into the spirit world since Sherlock hadn't felt any change in their bond, but that wasn't surprising. People always said that Guides had an easier time with the spirit world since they were already more attuned to the emotional and spiritual plane. The circular thinking needed in order to get into the spirit world wasn't completely easy, but eventually Sherlock's thoughts managed to click onto the right frequency. He could've probably found it within a month on his own—less, if his mother had forbidden it, because then he would've spent every waking hour trying to prove he could do it.

His first drop into the spirit world was terrifying. His mind, usually so carefully organized, spun in all directions as he tried to cope with the strange new plane of existence he'd found himself on. It pushed at him, pulled at him, and spit him out on a cobblestone path. He fell headfirst but it didn't hurt at all. There was just a strange pressure that was there one minute and then gone the next.

"Your first time?" said a voice somewhere over him.

Sherlock stood up, rubbing his head. There was something wrong with the gravity here. He wished he were a Sentinel, to better be able to tell what was off, but he settled for just being very smart.

"Yes," Sherlock said to the voice, who turned out to be a woman his mum's age.

The woman smiled warmly. He could actually feel the friendliness on her, more than he usually did in the real world. Guide powers were amplified here, he knew from his studies; historically, the spirit world was the Guide's domain, while the real world was the Sentinel's. Now, it was more like the real world was shared between the two, while the spirit world was for meeting with people who lived far away or just for some time spent away from the real world.

"You've arrived at just the right time. My name is Mrs. Hudson and I'm doing today's newcomer orientation. You're British, I assume, but if you feel more comfortable in another country's hub and think you got here by accident, I can help you get to where you should be."

"This is the right place," Sherlock said. "But can I just _not_ do the orientation?"

Mrs. Hudson laughed, took him by the hand, and led him through the forest path. There was a large clearing just beyond it with a whole group of people in the center. Some were sitting on the grass, a couple were lying down, but most were standing and looking around. The majority of the people were young—not young like Sherlock, but in their teens and twenties—but some were older. The two emotions at the top of the cloud of emotions were nervousness and anticipation. Sherlock wasn't any different, probably. He looked over at Mrs. Hudson, but couldn't tell whether she was a Sentinel or a Guide.

"Gather 'round!" Mrs. Hudson called, releasing Sherlock's hand now that they'd reached their destination.

Sherlock wondered if he could blend into the crowd and just escape through the trees, because people in large groups were _especially_ stupid and annoying, and he didn't need an orientation anyway. He could figure things out himself. And everyone here was old anywa—

Actually, that was an erroneous conclusion, Sherlock realized as he glanced around again. He walked over to the only person around his age, a boy who was lying on the grass and idly knotting a long strand of grass. Mrs. Hudson was saying something in the background, but Sherlock only listened with a very small part of his brain.

"Is that the Alexandrian knot?" Sherlock asked, coming to a stop next to the boy.

The boy's eyes blinked open. "What? Yes. How'd you know?"

"I read," Sherlock told him.

Frowning, the boy replied, "I read too, jeez. It's the knot that Captain Beechworth used to—"

"Tie up his treacherous first mate's hands before he sent him off the gangplank!" Sherlock interrupted, because that was one of the best stories in pirating history. It was on the list of the many detective scenes he and John still needed to act out.

"That's right," the boy said. "And then he went on to capture the Marian warship from the British. You're not bad. I'm Jim. Jim Moriarty."

"Sherlock Holmes. You're here for the first time, just like me."

"Yeah. I couldn't wait to be able to be able to come here."

"Why? Did you want to see someone? I'm here to meet with my Sentinel, but he's coming later, when he figures it out." The words caused him to glance down at his wrist, around which his bondstring looped until it stretched into the distance and vanished. All around him, he saw other people's bondstrings. Here in the spirit world, he couldn't turn that part of his vision off, but at least other people's bondstrings were fainter to his eyes than his own.

Jim snorted. "I see enough of my Guide in the real world, thanks. No, I just want to be here. There's a whole world out here full of weird, cool things that people barely care about because the real world is the one that's the more developed one. I want to know everything about this place."

When Jim put things like that, Sherlock could definitely get behind it. Adventuring in the spirit world would have to be even cooler than adventuring in the real world. And it wasn't like they could get too far off course; his mum had said that it was very hard to force your way off the paths beaten throughout the centuries. And even if you did, you might find yourself back on the right path right afterwards anyway. The spirit world worked in really mysterious ways. They'd really just be adventuring in places people already knew about, which was the kind of adventuring that Mummy said was alright and wouldn't get him a huge lecture.

"All along," Mrs. Hudson called, and the group followed her.

Sherlock helped Jim up, getting a better taste of his emotions as he did. Jim's emotions were a little muted, and there was more excitement than nervousness there, but that wasn't bad.

Mrs. Hudson led them through the British spirit world hub, from grassy plain to a warm summer beachside to a dark and cold desert that definitely wasn't actually in Britain to olden ruins of a civilization that had actually managed to build something in the spirit world. It was a natural paradise unlike the real world, which was full of cities and towns and cars puffing out carbon dioxide. John was going to love it once he found his way in. Sherlock lived in an area already full of space for their horses and forests and streams, but John lived in a flat in the city.

Everywhere they went, they saw people who'd come to the spirit world to be alone or to meet up with someone else. Mrs. Hudson was telling the story of how she'd had to avoid her husband here after their divorce, until he'd decided to start going to the Irish hub instead. He deduced that it hadn't quite been a voluntary decision on the husband's part.

Sherlock spun around, looking everywhere. The spirit world made no sense, and they traveled to different terrain as easily as breathing. It was amazing.

He kept chatting with Jim, too. Jim was _smart_. Not as smart as Sherlock, but still the kind of smart where it was exhilarating to talk to him. He was a little morbid, but the best people were, and had a way of saying cutting remarks just quiet enough that he probably wasn't overheard.

"I can't believe there's old people here for the first time," Jim was saying about a man in their group as they passed the government section of the hub. There were tents for schools and police officers and an information area. "That guy looks almost forty. What, he never ever got curious? Or just wasn't smart enough to meditate the right way."

Sherlock snorted. "People are dumb. He's going through a midlife crisis; see the tan line on his ring finger? Newly divorced, probably on vacation somewhere to get away from his old life, but instead of relaxing on a beach he's mentally coming back to Britain."

"His ex-wife was probably really into spirit world things; he's looked around at least forty times since the tour started. But there's loads of people in the hub and the area's ginormous, he's not going to find her."

They grinned at each other. Sherlock had noticed the man's glancing around, of course, but for the first time he finally found someone who noticed things (outside of his family, who didn't count, because they were all terribly boring). John was great, but John probably would've been actually listening to the tour instead of paying attention to the minor details around them.

The tour ended back at the meadow, with Mrs. Hudson saying, "Remember, the whole hub is just a thought away. Picture it, begin walking, and you'll arrive! Meditating your way out of the spirit world is a harder process, but if you got in, then you'll be sure to get out just fine. If not, I'll be at the information tent."

Jim turned to Sherlock. "Have you found your spirit animal yet? Want to go right now?"

Sherlock really wanted to say yes. Jim knew things that Sherlock didn't and was willing to share the information with him—it was the perfect offer. But with a sigh, Sherlock said, "No, I need to wait for my Sentinel. We promised each other that we'd find them together, that's all."

"What, you can't do anything without him? Is he keeping you on a leash or something?"

Sherlock glared at him. "That's not what I said. You're not listening. We promised, and a promise is a mutual thing. Besides, if I break one of my promises, then that means John won't call me for a week."

(If John broke one of his promises, then Sherlock would get John's comic book collection for an entire four months. Not that Sherlock wanted John's comic book collections, but John loved it, and if John broke a promise then that meant Sherlock was going to be mad enough to deprive John of the comic books.

"You're an evil mastermind," John said when Sherlock had told him his thought process, but his tone was approving. "So how do I do the same to you?"

"Not telling.")

"And that's a bad thing?"

"The worst," Sherlock muttered.

Jim looked at him strangely. "So you actually like your bondmate. I hate mine."

"Is he stupid?"

"The stupidest."

"John isn't very smart, but he makes up for it."

"How? I can't imagine how someone might be able to make up for being stupid."

"He plays detective games with me whenever I want. And he patches me up whenever I get a scrape because he wants to be a doctor one day, but his emotions are all gooey when he does it." Sherlock shrugged. "And he likes me. Not a lot of people like me."

Jim was looking at Sherlock like he was the stupid one, and it made him feel embarrassed, even though he shouldn't.

"I like you," Jim told him. His eyes had an intensity that made Sherlock feel weird.

"I like you, too," Sherlock said, and wondered if this was what making a friend was. John was his bondmate—that was completely different. But after years and years of being around stupid people his age at school, it was nice to make a friend. "Are you going to be here tomorrow? After dinnertime?"

"Definitely," said Jim.

 

*

 

"Again," Sherlock said, flipping a page in his book.

There was silence on the line. And then, "Ugh. How do you know I didn't get into the spirit world? Maybe we're talking through some kind of psychic link instead."

"That's absurd."

"That's the plot of like five shows on the telly." There was a bit of a shuffle, and Sherlock could almost see John shifting position in his living room, slumping in a slightly different way on the couch. John didn't have a telephone line in his room, so he couldn't be as comfortable as Sherlock, who was lying down on his bed and reading a book on the history of torture practices.

"I've gotten to the medieval torture section," Sherlock told him.

" _Yes_. Are there pictures?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, and stopped there.

"You're not going to tell me anything, are you?"

"Nope. You've been trying for days, maybe you need some kind of incentive." Sherlock didn't quite precisely mind, because in between school, their phone calls, and meeting up with Jim in the spirit world, he was keeping busy. Jim Moriarty was usually around, and each time they'd dare each other to do an even stupider thing. It was great fun. But he'd prefer to keep busy with John there with him. With loads and loads of practice, so much that most adults didn't even accomplish it, he and John could one day be able to enter the spirit world at the blink of an eye. He could pretend to fall asleep in class and really be very far away.

John huffed at him. "Hey, you're my bondmate. You can't be mean to me."

"Of course I can. Now, either get into the spirit world within the next hour or I'll go on my own. Maybe Jim and Carl and I will play pirates this time."

"You wouldn't."

"No, I wouldn't. I'd probably just spend half the time listening to them argue and the other half listening to Jim talk about himself."

A couple days of meeting with each other after dinnertime had taught Sherlock that although Jim really was as smart as he came off to be the first time they'd met, he had some majorly irritating qualities, too. The main one was the way he always tried to make things about himself. But he was fun, and he usually seemed to be showing off _for_ Sherlock instead of trying to show up Sherlock, so he wasn't bad. Neither was his Guide, who Sherlock had now met once. Carl wasn't as smart as either of them or even as enthusiastic as John; he seemed to be mostly interested in competitive swimming and was only going along with the spirit world thing because Jim had convinced him that he'd be a better Guide if he came along with him, and thus make Jim a better Sentinel. For about five seconds, Carl had seemed to think that just because they were both Guides, they had something in common. Sherlock didn't snub him, but he didn't instantly befriend him, either. He had something in common with half the population as a Guide, and a differently composed half of the population as a male.

Sighing, John said into the phone, "I wish I could meet them."

If John met Carl, then Jim and Sherlock would be able to shrug the boy off onto someone who could deal with him. John liked just about everyone. "You could if you just focused."

"Alright. I'm focusing. Again…"

Sherlock in turn focused on his book. His mother had hidden it well—on one of the top shelves in between a JD Robb book and a pile of old fashion catalogues—but Sherlock was pretty good at ferreting out people's secret places. Mummy was usually a proponent of Sherlock and Mycroft being able to read whatever they wanted to read, but some things slipped by that idea of openness.

"Anything cool happen today?" John asked, apparently having given up.

Sherlock glanced at the clock. "Five minutes, on the dot."

"I gave up really trying after three, but I didn't want you to know. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this kind of thing."

"Maybe," Sherlock said. "Actually, no. You're my Sentinel, so you can do whatever I can do. I won't have you not being able to go adventuring in the spirit world with me. And I have lots of tests to do on bonds in the spirit world and how they operate." Sherlock tapped his fingers on the cover of his next book. It was time for Plan E. He'd been reluctant to go to this one, but sitting on the phone with John while he complained about not being able to do this was getting boring. "I want you to focus on my voice. Not as focused you'd be during a zone, but still very intent."

"Then what?"

"Then I'll go into the spirit world and with you so focused on me and our bond, you _should_ be able to slip into the spirit world automatically, according to the books. Worst case scenario is just that you'll zone out for a couple minutes until you realize I'm not talking anymore."

"Okay, I think I could do better at that than this. Start talking."

"Mycroft was terrible today, as usual. I don't know why Mummy couldn't have just sent him off to boarding school. It wouldn't have been that hard. He deduced that I'd had a bad day at school—which I didn't, my experiment just failed, that's all, and I didn't even care—and wanted to talk about it because he 'cares about me'. Who does that, honestly. At least he didn't do it while Greg was over…" Sherlock kept going, talking about whatever came into his head. He made sure it was mostly coherent and that each new topic had some resemblance to the last so that John wouldn't be jarred out of his focused state. Eventually, after another couple minutes, Sherlock started slowly trying to meditate. It was harder to do it while still talking, but he managed it.

He just had to— There it was. The little way he had to nudge his mind, like lockpicks clicking into place inside a lock.

Sherlock opened his eyes to the most active area of the British spirit hub. He glanced down at the red string around his wrist. Unlike the usual way it faded into nothingness, it ran for a couple meters until it reached its other end.

John was looking around the area with wide eyes and grinned widely as he saw Sherlock. "I made it!"

"You grounded yourself on my voice," Sherlock said, with just a little smugness. It was a cop-out and John would still have to discover the proper meditation technique later, but for now, Sherlock would do. Besides, it was good to encourage John listening to him. There were too many people in this world who didn't listen well enough. One needed to keep in constant practice to make sure John never became one of those irritating people.

For a while, they just walked around. John wanted to see everything and Sherlock didn't mind too much; going everywhere again meant that he could deduce new things. And there were always new people in the spirit world with new problems to deduce.

By the time they looped around the clearing, Jim and Carl were already there. They were arguing, as they often were. They had to be suited to each other somehow—all Sentinels and Guides were suited to their bondmates in one way or another—but even Sherlock couldn't deduce how.

"This is John," Sherlock said as they reached the pair.

Jim looked at him and for a second Sherlock thought his emotions changed to something strange, dark in a way he couldn't figure out how to describe.

"Carl. That jerk is Jim," Carl muttered. He was still angry at Sherlock for whatever reason and not especially interested in John.

"Nice to meet you," John said, exchanging a look with Sherlock.

Sherlock shrugged. Jim had grown on him and Carl came with the package, apparently, though he didn't know why Jim kept inviting him into the spirit world if he didn't actually want to spend time with Carl. Maybe they liked fighting; maybe that was the kind of pair they were. But nowhere in their emotions—or their faces, because deduction was as good a power as being a Guide—was anything that spoke to friendship.

Jim jumped up from the log he'd been lounging on. "We're going that way today. I want to see what's past this forest."

"You can't always pick where we're going," Sherlock told him.

"Is there somewhere you want to go?"

"Not that way," Sherlock said.

John bumped his shoulder with a grin. "We can go wherever you want afterwards. Or tomorrow. Now that I can get in here we can do whatever we want!"

There was a reason John was his favorite. A couple, even.

John even took a bullet and started talking to Carl about sports. Apparently they were fans of rival teams or something. Sherlock tuned in long enough to hear them start talking animatedly about football before he fell into step with Jim, who decided to be boring and start going on about Carl _again_.

"God, he's the worst," Jim sneered.

Sherlock sighed. "I don't care."

"Don't you ever wonder there's sometimes mistakes made in however bonds are formed? Not everyone likes their bondmates, or becomes involved with them, or even sometimes they never even find each other, or don't care enough to meet more than once. They can't be _real_ bondmates."

"Yeah," Sherlock admitted. It wasn't the first time he'd thought Jim and Carl weren't really suited for each other. And, from some of the things he'd deduced about Jim, he didn't think Jim's parents were very happy or good to each other and Jim, whether they were bonded or not. But here in the spirit world, where bonds were visible all the time, there was no mistaking the red string that ran from Jim's wrist to Carl's. "But there's nothing you can do but deal with it. There's no take-backs."

Jim's lips pursed into a hard line. "I wish you were my Guide instead."

"We'd go crazy," Sherlock remarked, huffing. "Could you imagine?"

"I _could_ imagine." Jim's words were oddly intense, but he got that way sometimes.

Sherlock was going to change the subject to something better—like the book he'd been reading earlier—when John said, "Hey, where are we going?"

Sherlock looked behind them and started paying attention to their surroundings. What a genius he was; he'd been so focused on Jim that he'd barely registered where they were going. He'd just been following Jim.

The area around them looked as the spirit usually did: beautiful, almost idyllic nature, with no animals except the occasional spirit animal scampering around or flying overhead. Jim's owl was the only one flying now, while Carl's caracal was nowhere to be seen. Beyond the physical… Things felt off, as though the feeling had been steadily increasing the entire time, and Sherlock hadn't noticed. Like a frog in water.

"You want to go off-path," Sherlock realized.

"Are you going to say some stupid thing like we're not allowed?"

"We're _not_ allowed," John said. "Or maybe not _not_ allowed, but not encouraged."

"My parents said it doesn't matter that we can go and that there's a bunch of things that people technically can do but shouldn't. I'll be grounded forever if we go," Carl said.

"Why do you care what people think?" Jim asked, sneering at Carl. "They obviously just haven't explored anything themselves and are just parroting what they hear other people say. I bet even Mrs. Hudson, who gives _lessons_ on the spirit world, hasn't gone off-path."

Sherlock couldn't deny that was true. And he couldn't deny that he wanted to go. He glanced over at John. If John said no…

"We turn back the very second something feels weird," John said. To Carl, he added, "You can turn back. It's alright if you don't want to go."

"Alone?"

"I could go with you. It's not like it really matters, what's off-path. We could go talk footie in the big field."

Jim snorted. "Lame. And if you leave, then we'll all have to leave. It's less fun if it's just two of us."

That hadn't been Jim's tune before. Maybe he'd warmed up to John, Sherlock thought.

"I'll go. But if something happens, I'm blaming you, Jim," Carl said.

"Whatever."

They started walking again, and now that they were going more determinedly off-course, the feeling crept in faster. John walked beside him, with Sherlock ahead and Carl behind. The forest became denser. Sherlock thought he heard a flock of birds  lift off, but he couldn't see them anywhere. He remembered the pressure that he'd felt when he'd entered the spirit world; there was a similar sensation now.

As well as the sensation of exploring some place new, which he hadn't felt in years. He'd scoured every inch of the grounds at home by age five and knew his town all too well now that he was ten years old. This was new. This was _exciting_.

There was light beyond the forest—light and pressure and pain, but not enough to make him stop.

And then with a pop, like the kind his ears did when he went on a plane, they were both out of the forest and off-path.

"Wow," Carl said, and on this, Sherlock agreed.

There were animals of all kinds all around them, birds flying from the forest and down off the cliff they'd found themselves on. To the left, the ground lowered slowly, likely leading to the beach Sherlock saw in the distance, but directly in front of them was only rock and dirt until the cliffside. And then, only sea. Sherlock walked slowly outward, feeling each footstep, but the rock was solid. He glanced down and saw many large, scraggly rocks poking out of the water. He couldn't see any fish from their height, but he thought he saw the tails of dolphins farther off, as well as birds native and non-native to ocean areas flying above.

"Do you think they're unclaimed spirit animals?" John asked, looking backwards, where a deer had poked its head out of the forest.

"Or those of people who've died," Sherlock mused. His tutor would probably know; while people were discouraged from going off-path, it didn't mean that no one at all did.

The wind was cold, which he hadn't expected. In the other areas, there had never been any change in temperature when the landscape; what his body felt, so did his spirit self. He wanted to tell Mummy about the adventure and brag to Mycroft, but he'd probably be lectured about the whole mess for ages, and he'd rather not be.

"Up for a swim?" Jim asked.

Sherlock stared dubiously down at the waters. If the air was cold, then the water was probably freezing.

But John was looking down the edge of the forest, where the ground sloped slowly downwards. "If we go that way, we could get to the beach. Carl, you could show us your moves."

"You're right!" Carl said.

Jim grabbed his hand before he could move. "Wait, look at this— I think being off-path has changed the color of our bondstrings."

Sherlock didn't have time to look down at his and John's connection. It happened fast.

For all his interest in violent histories and crimes, Sherlock had never seen more than a schoolyard fight. His eyes caught the motions: Jim's hand on Carl's wrist, Jim's movement, the way it changed from Jim holding onto Carl to him pushing Carl instead. Carl falling backwards, his feet unsteady, his hands reaching out to grab onto anything at all, and finding only Jim, who pulled away and kicked him.

Carl only screamed when there was no dirt beneath his feet or hands to grab onto. Sherlock's hand was too late, outstretched but too far away.

Carl fell. Down, and down, and down.


	3. Chapter 3

"Why would you do that?" John cried, spinning around to face Jim. He was shaking, and his fear and anger was loud enough for Sherlock to choke on if Sherlock weren't feeling almost the same thing. John grabbed Sherlock and pulled him back from the cliffs by several steps, almost causing him to fall, but it would have been backwards, towards John.

Jim only stared down at his wrist. He gave a sharp tug on his bondstring, but it didn't budge.

That at least gave Sherlock hope. "He's not dead. The string would have vanished if Carl died. He might have been able to meditate out of the spirit world." He and John shared a glance. Maybe fear had improved Carl's concentration, but Sherlock wasn't completely sure. Carl was only slightly better than John when it came to entering and exiting the spirit world, despite being a Guide. "We can go home and call his parents and see if he's okay."

Jim glanced up. "Yes. I miscalculated. It must be harder to kill someone in the spirit world than this, but I couldn't find many resources that could accurately say what exactly could kill someone, other than straying off course."

Cold dread filled Sherlock's chest. He wasn't sure if it was his or John's; it definitely wasn't Jim's. From Jim, he only got a distant, dark satisfaction. "If you didn't want him as a Guide, you could have just not spoken to him ever again. You don't need to _kill_ him."

His mind was whirling. A couple seconds later, Sherlock froze.

Jim raised an eyebrow at him. "Yes, I did. You see it now, don't you?"

"See _what_?" John asked. "See that you're some kind of psychopath—"

"You're not going to be my Sentinel," Sherlock said. His words felt like they came from far away. He hadn't known Jim for that long, but he'd liked him, and Sherlock rarely liked anyone. Apparently, his judgment needed readjusting. "That's what you want, isn't it."

"We're already bonded," John said. His hand on Sherlock's arm tightened slightly.

"But what happens when both our bondmates die in a horrific accident?" Jim asked, his eyes boring into Sherlock's. He treated John like an afterthought, like the awful things he was saying had already come true. "What then? We'd return to the regular world without our strings and within moments, they would regenerate to fit the next best match. And they may have gotten it wrong the first time, but they won't get it wrong this time. You're my perfect match, Sherlock, not him."

Worse than everything Jim was saying was the fact that Sherlock was pretty sure it was true. He and Jim had so much in common, had gotten along so easily from the first time they'd met. Not like John— they were the best of friends, but John was every good part of him. Jim was all the bad, and sometimes Sherlock wondered if there wasn't more bad to him than good. He wasn't very nice, he didn't like people most of the time, and there were so many things in this world that he just didn't care about.

"Too bad," John said. "I was here first."

"I can fix that. Don't you want me to?"

"No," Sherlock said, and saw anger build on Jim's face. Jim was quick to anger, but it had never been toward Sherlock before now. "I've got a Sentinel—my Sentinel. You're not him. You're never going to be able to replace John."

"Fine," Jim replied. "I guess even Sherlock Holmes can be wrong sometimes. I can show you."

Out from the forest flew Jim's spirit animal, a large great horned owl, its wings spread open wide. It flew past them, then looped around in their direction. Owls weren't the most intimidating beasts Sherlock had ever seen, but their beak and talons were sharp, and Jim's spirit animal's wingspan was over four feet. It was bigger than Sherlock's head—and heading straight for John's.

"You know which one to attack," Jim said. "Maybe this will work better than just pushing you off the ledge. Sherlock, stand aside."

In their home plane, spirit animals couldn't get injured or killed, but Sherlock didn't want to see if the same applied to humans who were attacked by a spirit animal.

"Into the forest!" he yelled, tugging John with him.

They ran, stumbling over roots and dirt and the many trees all around them. Sherlock directed them to run ahead, then angled to the right.

John looked behind them, panting. He whispered hoarsely, "I don't see them, but I know they followed us." Seeing a small hill they could hide behind, Sherlock and John crouched and tried to catch their breath. "We have to get back on path."

Sherlock swallowed, his mouth dry. "It'll take too long. Remember how long it took us to get here? And what if we get lost, what if—"

Sherlock looked around frantically. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know anything and someone was maybe dead and—

John grabbed hold of his hand. In a hushed voice, he said, "Then you have to do what you did earlier. Bring both of us back."

"I don't know if I can."

"Of course you can. You're Sherlock Holmes. You're my Guide."

"Sherlock Holmes apparently isn't the best judge of character."

"You can work on it later. Just start talking. Really quietly. We don't have much time."

"Albatross," Sherlock began. He didn't let his mind wander, didn't get creative about his chant. He only listed every noun he could think of that began with the letter A. By the time he moved on to B, John's face had gotten slack. It couldn't have been more than a couple minutes, but every couple seconds, Sherlock heard a sound and was so certain it was Jim. It felt like Jim was behind every tree, every gust of wind. And the worst thing about it was that he was after John, not Sherlock.

He tugged with his mind on their spirits, hoping against hope that it worked.

When he opened his eyes next, he was back in his bedroom.

Sherlock grabbed for the phone, nearly shouting into it as he said, "John? Are you there?"

A long second later, he heard, "I'm here."

"We need to go to London."

"Where in London?"

Sherlock thought back frantically to everything Carl had ever told him. He'd been hardly listening most of the time, but at least he hadn't bothered to delete anything. Carl was a swimmer, he was on a team, his school's team, he attended— "Sherrinford School. Someone there has to know where he lives. We'll find each other in the city!"

Sherlock barely remembered to slide the phone back into its holder. He ran down the stairs, past the kitchen, and skidded to a stop in the living room. Mummy and Mycroft were still watching that boring show they liked, something about a man with a box. Less than an hour had passed in the real world. Less than an hour, but Sherlock's entire life had changed, and nearly been ruined.

"I need to go to London," Sherlock said. Now that he was so close to his mother, he suddenly realized how close to tears he was. It was the adrenalin—that was all. A physiological reaction to the things that had gone on in the spirit world. "Please. Let's go."

 

*

 

Being a Guide meant dealing with what felt like all the emotions in the world. It was bad enough in school, but Sherlock hadn't been prepared for how much worse it would be in a hospital. He'd never been in one in his life; their family's private physician had visited them whenever something was wrong. The worry and pain around him would've been overwhelming, but at least in this circumstance, it felt far away. Sherlock's entire focus was on the boy in front of him.

He'd never met Carl Powers in real life, and now he was lying on a hospital bed in front of Sherlock. He'd told Mummy and Mycroft everything that had happened on the way, but he'd almost expected to arrive at the address they'd found for Carl and find him to be the one to open the door for them, as annoying and healthy as ever.

Instead, his older sister had told them that Mr. and Mrs. Powers had taken him to the hospital. He'd fallen into a coma.

On the other side of Carl, his parents and the psychictrist were talking. "It's not a physical ailment, going by both young Sherlock's statement and the psychic signs."

"Then can't you do something? Connect to him in the spirit world and pull him back?"

"I'm sorry. I've tried everything I can, and so have the doctors, but we weren't able to forcibly pull him back into his body. When I went in to find him, he didn't respond to me. I'll have someone try to do the same every hour for another twenty-four, but there's a chance he's gone too far."

Sherlock placed his hand on top of Carl's. He could feel him, somewhere deep inside but also so very far outside the body. Quietly, ignoring the adults, he said, "Hey, you need to come back already."

"Sherlock—" someone said, but he didn't pay attention.

It wasn't John, because John was sitting right there next to him, warm and solid against Sherlock's side. John _understood_.

"Come on, you jerk."

He didn't like Carl Powers. He didn't have to, in order to care that he just lived.

 _He may be at peace already,_ the incompetent psychictrist had told Carl's parents. Maybe the man had just wanted to calm them, or maybe he'd just been stupid. Sherlock didn't hold many people to a very high standard. Carl wasn't at peace. He'd been terrified, falling from the cliff, and Sherlock had felt every bit of it. It was the kind of terror that drove people out of their minds, except Carl had gone beyond even that.

The psychictrist had tried to find Carl and send calm emotions through him, but Carl had never met the man before. He wouldn't trust him. He didn't trust Sherlock, either, but at least he knew him a little.

 _I'm here,_ Sherlock sent. _Jim is gone. He won't ever be able to bother you again. And—if you need a Sentinel, I could share John. Only sometimes. Maybe alternate weekends, with limits. You can join our detective games._

Carl's skin had gotten red with the force behind Sherlock's grip. Slowly, Sherlock unclenched his grip on Carl's hand, but still held his hand there loosely.

Very belatedly, he realized that John had taken hold of his other hand.

 _It's alright,_ Sherlock thought, unsure of whether he was talking to himself or Carl. _Really. Stop it. You're upsetting people—your parents. They're really upset. So come out of it already._

 _You're upset,_ Sherlock thought, and it took him a moment to realize that it wasn't him thinking that.

_Carl?_

_You're upset for me. Didn't think you liked me._

_Stop being stupid and open your eyes already. Where are you?_

_I'm in my spirit animal. We merged or something, I don't know. It's nice here. Quiet._

Sherlock pinched him. _It's quiet here, too. So let's go. Up and out._

_Jim's really gone? I heard that other man, but I wasn't sure. I thought it might be a trick._

_It's not a trick. They took him away to a psychiatric hospital. He won't be leaving it, my mum will make sure of it._

_And my parents aren't angry?_

_They'll be really angry when I tell them you're talking to me and not them._

"You're such a jerk," were Carl's first audible words. They were hoarse, and his eyes were only open a sliver, but it was enough.

 

*

 

Sherlock and John were were soon forgotten in the bustle of crying parents, which Sherlock was really alright with. He and John took two chairs across from Carl's room. Leaning back, Sherlock thought he might be able to fall asleep right there. For some reason he suddenly felt so exhausted. To his right, John didn't look any better.

"I'm going to be a real detective when I grow up," Sherlock said, too tired to even look at John properly. And if there was one thing he was sure of now, his Guide powers could steer him wrong, but they could also get him out of of trouble.

"I'm going to grow watermelons and never be in danger again," John told him. Behind all of his bondmate's exhaustion, there was a thread of resolve. It wasn't to become a farmer, though.

"You're such a liar," Sherlock said.

"Yeah," John admitted, because really. "But I'm still going to be a doctor. I'm just going to be a detective _too_. That way I can help people even more."

"I don't want to help people, I just want to solve mysteries," Sherlock said.

"Mmm," John replied before his head dropped onto Sherlock's shoulder. "I believe you. But next time we play detective games, it's going to be Carl's turn to be the detective, if he wants. Or the pirate captain, or anything."

"Yeah, okay."


End file.
